Tag Archives: self-exploration

I don’t know the man that I’m supposed to be:
I’ve looked at his life like a documentary;
and with some of his choices I just can’t agree;
but it’s too late to start out again.

I’m tired of the man I’m supposed to become:
that you get where you’re going thanks to where you’re from,
and somehow, the pieces add up to the sum
’til it’s too late to start out again.

Help me out, anyone, throw me a line;
tell me again things will all be just fine.
Help me out, would you, we’re out here alone;
we don’t need to be stuck on our own.

I’m sick of the man I turned into a while:
that often unsteady and pathetic smile
who traded in substance and bartered with style,
but you can’t up and start out again.

I’m sure I don’t know who I’ll be in the end:
the lover, the fighter, the poet, the friend;
but at least in the mirror, I will not pretend
it’s not too late to start out again.

Help me out, anyone, throw me a bone,
some reassurance here in the unknown.
Help me out, please, and I’ll do you the same;
we don’t need to keep playing this game.

I’m just not quite clear who I’ll be in a year:
but some things are cloudy, and others quite clear;
there’s neither the past or the future to fear,
and there’s no starting over again.

Help me out, anyone, just take a chance.
Music is playing; we’ve paid for the dance.
Help me out, honestly, what can you lose?
We don’t always get what we choose,
but we’re neither just yesterday’s news.

At what precise moment does the epiphany conceived of self-deliberation end its foolish premeditation on some inner change of being and address itself to the self in others, recognizing in external, living beings that same life force that propels it along the path of least resistance to its indeterminate conclusion?

When does that personal philosophy (or love of knowledge) come into being that requires the death of philology (knowledge of love, one could propose) and must of its own accord stand naked, alone and shivering on the mountain of endless esoteric academic masturbation and let loose its seed to propagate the action of love?

On what basis is the foundation for living laid?

On the cold and calculating pillars of what we think wisdom, but is in reality mere logic and more of the same false illusion separating the observer from the observed?

Or on the fetid swamp, crawling with unseen slime-in-the-making that marks its time of evolution simply absorbing the dry coastline and turning it to scores of miniature Atlantis fragments?

When does the monologue, the endless harangue against unseen foes and perceived slings and arrows that pierce the wondering mind with necessary doubt and wavering conviction, cease to be a speech released to the waiting air alone, and listen, beyond the echo of its own Doppler castings, to the response in the ears (any ears — one’s own, or someone else’s) that comes back, like a Messiah encased in the triangulating pulse of myth’s strange sonar, like a quiet ripple lost in the cascade of the sea at high tide?

At what precise moment does the angle of the jaw when open start to close the portal of the ears?

J ust give me a momentO f your time, and together, we’ll try toH onestly explore the taste ofN ew wine in old wineskins,L ight cigarettes with old matches, andI n the process, attempt to learn something aboutT he way the world has shaped us. In the quietZ en of here and now, whereE verything, like Shroedinger’s Cat, both is and isN ot, let us wander wide-eyed and amazed,B oth expecting nothing, andE verything, seeking for a newR eality. Let understanding be ourG oal, this time around. On the next trip, who knows?

Well, it’s that time again. Time to revisit, in alphabetical order, the poetic forms as identified in Lewis Turco’s The Book of Forms: A Handbook of Poetics. Starting with today’s poem, we’ll visit all the traditional verse forms, starting with lyric Poetry, then progressing to dramatic and narrative Poetry.